Is An Office Safe a Wise Investment?

In an office environment, having a secure place to store documents, data backups, cash and other valuables is indispensable. Besides protecting important items from theft, an office safe can also defend against damage or destruction by fire, flood or other accidents.

Insurance

Insurance companies base the premiums that they charge on a variety of factors. One of these is the security of valuable items that could be stolen or destroyed. By investing in a good-quality office safe, you may find that you can reduce your insurance premiums.

Privacy Issues

If your company needs to store sensitive personal information on your clients — financial records or medical records, for instance — you could run into trouble if documents or data storage devices containing this information ever goes missing. The violation of your clients’ privacy could cause significant problems, not just for the clients affected but for your company. The consequences might not be limited to a loss of custom and client confidence. Depending on the situation, your business might even face legal repercussions if sensitive information is not protected sufficiently.

Theft

One of the primary purposes of a safe is to protect against theft. A small cashbox or document box can simply be picked up and spirited away by a thief, who may then pick or break the lock at leisure. A safe is larger and generally boasts a lock that’s more complex and hard to break. This extra level of security can help deter opportunistic thieves, who won’t wish to remain on the premises long enough to tackle a safe. An office safe also helps to address the problem of theft by employees by ensuring that only trusted staff have access to the contents of the office safe.

Fire and Water Damage

When most people think of a safe, they think of it in terms of an anti-theft device. A quality office safe can also protect your valuable documents and backups against damage in the case of a fire. Many standard safes have a fire rating and provide a measure of protection; you can also obtain more highly-rated fire safes, which will safeguard the contents for much longer and at higher temperatures. Remember that a safe which is designed to protect documents from fire may not provide sufficient heat resistance to protect hard drives, flash drives or other removable media, which fail at lower temperatures than paper. If you wish to protect Back-up tapes from fire and theft then you will require a Fire Data Safe, which will keep the contents below 52 dgrees centigrade in the event of a fire. This is essential for tapes, negatives and microfiche as standard fir safes only protect paper. which can wiuthstand a much higher temperature before being damaged.

Standard safes are not typically resistant to water, meaning that the contents may be affected in the case of storms, flooding or waterlogging caused by firefighting efforts. You can find safes that offer extra protection from water, however.

Choosing a Safe

When selecting an office safe, consider the weight of the unit and where you want to locate it and ensure thatr it can be bolted down – some moderrn suspended floors make this very difficult.. Safes are often very heavy and not all structures are capable of supporting such weights for long periods. When deciding on the size of the safe, select one that’s somewhat larger than you currently require. It’s likely that you will require more space in the long term.